But yesterday was a day of celebrating and remembering. Kirsteen Thomson who lives a few miles from Leicester opened her art exhibition at the Guildhall.

She's been fascinated by Richard III for many years. In fact, the King passed by the back of her garden over five hundred years ago. She painted the spot twenty years ago, ...and behind the green door in the painting lies the intact drawbridge to the old castle in Kirby Muxloe.

She's painted Leicester Cathedral, the Guildhall and other local landmarks as well as other places associated with the last Plantagenet King. Fotheringhay, where he was born, Edinburgh, Yorkshire and Wales. There's also a book about Richard III filled with her paintings ...

Another book launched yesterday was "How to bury a King" by the Reverend Pete Hobson. He's the man who was given the responsibility of doing just that...the redesign of the cathedral and preparing it for the reinterment.

And that's something that has never been done before , so it really was a step into the unknown. Pete though is so calm and level headed , and in the build up to the pomp and pageantry of last year,
he remained quite serene every time I interviewed him.
His book tells the inside story of what happened behind the scenes .

A CD was also launched on Saturday featuring the music during the services at Leicester Cathedral last March performed by the choir from Leicester Cathedral. I still remember the shiver at the back of my neck during the Sunday service when they sang.....

And a new, different portrait of Richard III was unveiled on Saturday at the King Richard III Visitor Centre. Back in February, the centre asked people to send in their photographic memories of the reinterment in Leicester. Over ten thousand images were sent in from all over the world, and the result is this, a rather stunning , three metre high , photo montage portrait of Richard.

I love it.....and when you look closely, you can see some of the original photographs

Local dignitaries laid white roses at the statue of Richard just outside the Cathedral on Saturday too with quite a crowd there to watch.

The effect of Richard's reinterment on Leicester and the county is huge - symbolically, historically and financially.

Working so close by to the cathedral, I'm amazed at the numbers of visitors there over the last year. To hear American, French , Canadian and even Australian voices as I walk past would have been very unusual a couple of years ago. Not now though.

Visitor numbers in Leicester and at the Bosworth Battlefield centre where Richard III was killed remain high, hotels are running at eighty per cent capacity,

It's been estimated this week that the reinterment has brought £59 million worth of business to the city, and that's a conservative estimate.

But let's not just talk about money...there's a buzz about Leicester now. Our Midlands city has been put on the map historically, there's a pride about the place, and that's due to the 'Richard III effect' as it's known locally.

Of course our football team, Leicester City, have also been hitting the international headlines. The stuff of dreams, the story about our team who were languishing at the bottom of the Premier League in March last year, has now become a global phenomenon. Little Leicester City, are now at the top of the league, inspiring everyone ....and it's been suggested that Richard III , even though he died over five hundred years ago, could be responsible.

I'm not kidding. Some fans say since Richard was reinterred, the football team has had a runaway success, and that the facts speak for themselves. Is it a coincidence ? Or is it a form of "King Power" which incidentally is the name of the stadium where Leicester City play?

Whatever, Leicester has changed since a dead king was found in a city car park and was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral. And it's a very positive change too.......

Monday, 14 March 2016

Before you get excited thinking I'm running and fund raising, I'm not. I couldn't even run for a bus let alone a mile, half marathon or a full marathon. Just watching people run makes me feel prostrate with exhaustion.

The last time I ran was at my children's village school mother's day race. I disgraced myself. Within about ten paces I fell - I'd ruptured my calf muscle. Ice , rest and elevation I was told. I tried but my youngest was only a toddler, it was difficult. Within four days I felt ill, my foot was so cold, and within half an hour of seeing the doctor I was in hospital. A huge haematoma in my calf was diagnosed. I couldn't drive for six weeks and had physio for five months. That my dears, is why I don't run!

But my son Callum has been running since Christmas and he's training for the London marathon. Not that he's ever done any long distance running before either.

He made up his mind last year to run in London next month , all 26.2 miles of it. That's why he's been pounding the country lanes and city streets before dawn, getting into shape.

I'm impressed by his determination and by the fact that he's running the race to raise funds for Pancreatic Cancer UK. It's a cause very deep to all our hearts in our family.....my husband's mother and brother both died from this cruel and insidious disease.

Callum's much loved Granny Beryl was 76 years old, and David was only 59. They were both much loved and always remembered.

So, as well as training, Callum has to raise £2,500 for the charity Pancreatic Cancer Research. He's held a disco over Christmas, , and organised a slap up lunch at his rugby club in February which raised hundreds of pounds.

Here he is with Jenny, David's wife

Such a good afternoon followed by a cracking game of rugby.

So there's only six weeks to go until the London Marathon and Callum's training schedule is moving into its final phase. This weekend he ran his first ever event - the Silverstone Half Marathon. I'd never heard of it before , but this event at the home of British motor racing , attracted over 10,000 runners.

It was cold but sunny and it was mostly on the flat running lap along the racing track. What a great day and I was able to see Callum pass by four times.

By the time the race was half over I managed to meet up with Callum's girlfriend and her parents Ian and Ann Louise who were also there to support him , and we whooped and hollered as he came to the finishing line, in a respectable 1 hour 55 minute time.

I think it's safe to say he was cream crackered by the end....but was on a real high too...

And we were all very proud of him.

He wasn't the only one running for Pancreatic Cancer Uk of course , there were over thirty of them, all doing their bit and running in memory of someone close to them. At the London Marathon there will be 120 or so running for the charity amongst the 38,000 runners taking part.

It's going to be a blast and all our family will be there and we reckon Callum will have about 20 people cheering him on as he pounds through the streets of London. If you would like to sponsor him, here's the link.....https://www.justgiving.com/callumblair/

He, we and the team at Pancreatic Cancer UK would be so grateful. They're supporting those affected by the disease, investing in research, and lobbying for greater recognition of pancreatic cancer. They say that for that for too long this disease has been sidelined.

Thursday, 3 March 2016

It's four weeks ago today since I visited two very different gardens in the Copenhagen area.

A grey cold day at the beginning of February isn't the ideal time to see these outdoor spaces in their full glory of course, but there were compensations. You can see the bones of the garden , the hard landscaping and it's fun to imagine what they look like in the lushness of the summer months.

In the morning, Lucy and I went out to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which is about forty km away from Copenhagen, a mere thirty minutes by train. we were there to see the artworks for sure, but I was very interested in what the garden had to offer.

The museum is set overlooking the sea and Sweden...yet at the front entrance, it looks like what it was...a 19th century home.

It was built in 1855 for Alexander Brun , a Master of the Royal Hunt and if you're wondering why it's called Louisiana, well, he married three women who were all named Louise. At least he never called any of them by the wrong name in the throes of passion.But in 1958 the then owner Knud W. Jensen opened this place as a museum of modern art. And before you even arrive at the front entrance, you can see that this is a museum which is a major player. This Henry Moore statue simply can't be ignored.

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At the back of the original house you can still see part of the garden as it would have looked when Alexander and any of his three wives were here.

But the main house now has two modern wings where the main exhibitions are shown...all sleek white walls and glass which bring the outdoors in, especially in the
Giacometti gallery overlooking the lake.

And in winter the starkness of the steel grey sky and sea are offset by the sixty or so sculptures dotted around the garden by Alexander Calder...﻿

Miro, and many others.

In some areas, though , the trees look as if they have carved out of the ground...I admired the patterns of the roots on show

before following Lucy back towards the house, where I could imagine all the Louises sitting on the verandah looking out to sea.

Indoors there are numerous exhibitions which are constantly refreshed, as well as 3,000 works in the permanent collection. Warhol, Lichenstein, Picasso, they're all here...but Lucy and I were intrigued and completely drawn in by Resistance, the exhibition byMindaugas Lukosaitis

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A hundred or so finely captured sketches showing the horrors of conflict, soldiers, the people defending themselves , their homes, the bloodshed ....there's such an immediacy and vibrancy here.

And we couldn't ignore the whole wall of colour which sent us virtually cross eyed... a whole corridor of blue and red squares

by Francois Moreliet whose work is based on telephone numbers taken at random from the telephone directory.

But this is a post about gardens in Copenhagen, so onto the University of Copenhagen's Botanical Garden, which is a mere two minutes from the hubbub of central Copenhagen.

A slight mizzle by now, but it was our last afternoon in Copenhagen and I was determined not to miss it. With twenty four acres and twenty seven glasshouses, there's quite a lot to see but entrance is free and it's well worth a visit.

The stars of the show for our visit on a winter's afternoon were the glasshouses. Imposing, Victorian, I adore the ornate class of these standing proudly on the hill.

And once inside , they took us to different continents, different worlds....

And in the largest, most central palmhouse there's a beautiful cast iron staircase which you can climb, and then walk around the perimeter at the top of the glasshouse and look down on a tropical rainforest...

and then as you walk through the other glasshouses, there are progressively cooler, drier gardens .

But as with so many botanic gardens, this is a place for serious research which was built on this site at the beginning of the 1870's. This is where the city's old fortifications were - you can see the old ramparts where the rock gardens now.

The lake was created from where the old moat used to be....I really love how the designers worked with the space , highlighting the origins of this space, not completely obliterating them.

The Botanical Gardens are fascinating even though many the 13,0000 species planted here were hibernating for the winter. To be able to spend an hour or two wandering around admiring the views, and the planting of the glasshouses made me feel very content indeed.

What a lovely final day to our trip to Copenhagen. I can't wait until next time , and although Copenhagen is a city for all seasons, next time our visit will be in the summer!